


Coiled & Spun

by osunism



Category: Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26585218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: Snapshots of the "Jade Regent" campaign featuring Nafisa, a Vishkanya Slayer, and Norne, an oni-blooded tiefling, as well as their companions.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Beneath Frozen Stars

**Author's Note:**

> A year ago my friends and I wrapped up the Jade Regent Adventure Path for Pathfinder. It was my first introduction to Pathfinder as a player [but I was tangentially familiar with it]. I gotta say, I LOVE Pathfinder--more so than D&D. So I wound up writing about my characters, Nafisa, a Vishkanya Slayer, and her relationship with her companions, but mainly her lover, Norne, an oni-blooded tiefling played by my best friend!
> 
> It’s one of our favorite campaigns to reminisce about but honestly the two of them were wasted on a pre-planned AP. Definitely want to introduce them in a homebrew.

Norne is not a fool, Nafisa has learned. It is with grudging respect that she acknowledges this. He is brash, sometimes a bit slow to pick up on cues, but he is no fool. It is why, when she decides to linger on the edges of the caravan’s fires like some nightspun figment, she is not surprised he finds her. She has listened to his hearty laughter, his bad jokes, and his attempts to flirt for weeks. Weeks before, she had been staring at the remains of his corpse, uncomfortably numb to the world around her. They’d covered him with a sheet. The blood had spread along it, creeping like a wine stain, and in the brutal cold of the frozen north, had stiffened and darkened quickly. Nafisa remembers how long her gaze lingered on that bloodstain, and how the image of his death haunted her dreaming hours even long after his revival. It has been a specter between them, making her uncharacteristically protective.

She hears him approach, feels his presence along her skin like an ant-march, knows that this has been a long time coming. She takes a deep, withering breath. With her hood up, her senses are aflame, and his scent is powerful, redolent of his own hellish bloodline. He is heat--a great deal of it--and the primitive mind of the predator inside of her...the _serpent_...craves that heat. They are tinder and flame, and Nafisa turns to face him, her heart in her throat.

“You don’t do broody very well.” Norne says by way of greeting. Nafisa can’t help herself: she laughs. It is restrained and exhausted laughter, but it is there, spun as thin as fresh ice, delicate enough that it could shatter and reveal the mess beneath. Norne, thankfully, does not push.

“I’m not brooding.” Nafisa protests, the threat of venom in her voice. “I’m adjusting. I do not do the cold very well.”

Norne says nothing at first. There is a gravity about his gaze that threatens to pull at the foundations of her defenses which have weathered far worse than his nonsense. With a deft motion of his hand, he produces a worn deck of cards. Nafisa purses her lips at the sight of the Harrow deck. In some places, these cards are thought of as nothing but toys, fashionable fads for the bored and wealthy, but to them...they are more.

Nafisa’s mouth quirks into a crooked smile. “Let me guess: you read my fortune and it said I was a bitch.” She intones dryly, but Norne does not smirk, nor does he laugh. Instead, he gestures to the ground between them. Hesitantly, Nafisa sits and Norne sits before her and begins shuffling the deck. She eyes the artful dance of the cards, hoping to spot the faces of one of them. She has always been skeptical of Norne’s ability to read fortunes, crediting his skills to that of a con artist, but the people seem genuinely convinced of whatever he tells them. She cannot gainsay him, not when his gaze lingers in hers for a span most would call unfriendly.

Norne spreads the cards in a fan before them, and draws four from the array. Nafisa knows what he is about, though never has he deigned to actually read her fortune in his cards, nor has she asked. Tonight is different, and Norne keeps his gaze on hers.

“Past,” he explains, pointing to the furthest card on his left, “this is the life before, the deeds that defined you before now.” He gestures to the center card. “Catalyst. This is what drove you down the path you are on now.” He gestured to the third. “Virtue.” And finally, “Fate.”

Nafisa nods, understanding. Everyone in Varisia has seen a Harrow deck and her time amongst them over the years has made her particularly adept at recognizing the various ways soothsayers and fortune tellers utilized them. As Norne reaches for her past, her arm shoots out, giving credit to her serpentine roots for all its speed. Her fingers close on his wrist, firm and gentle, but insistent.

“Why are you doing this?” She asks. Norne does not resist her; he will not read the fate of one who is not ready to face it. Instead, he waits, and Nafisa feels her heart in her throat again, and suddenly she cannot look at him anymore, letting go of his wrist as if she’s been burned.

“Don’t.” She tells him. “I don’t need to know.” Norne watches her face with hushed expectancy. He always does this, waiting for her thoughts to take form, then siphoning them in his own way. Perhaps she is losing her edge, or perhaps he is simply more perceptive than his usual dull-witted antics let on.

“If you won’t let me read your fortune,” Norne says, “and I _really_ wanted to look, believe me, then I won’t. But you’re being weird.”

Nafisa wrinkles her nose. It is an exaggerated expression, and one of her least favorite as it savages her serpentine beauty, revealing the monster beneath the exotic pattern of scales. Too often she has seen the way the humans look askance at her, lingering on the parts of her that remind them that she is as much _creature_ as woman. It is why it is so easy to find comfort in the sharp scythe of Norne’s smile. Much as her serpentine origins damns her blood and saliva to venom and colors her in the exotic morph of a viper, so too does his infernal blood color his existence, and yet she suspects that he has an easier time navigating the world than she. Still, for all his brashness and ridiculousness, she cannot deny Norne is a kindred spirit.

The forest mountains are behind them now, with only the windswept expanse of the steppes ahead, and beyond that: the Forest of Spirits. Nafisa rubs her arms. The cold is brutal on her blood, and she wonders how her family ever settled in the lower steppes of Hongal, when she craves only the steamy warmth of the bathhouses they left behind in the city of Orgdu Aganhei.

Nafisa startles as Norne settles his heavier fur-lined cloaked around her shoulders. She glances up at him sharply before hiding her face. His scent floods her nostrils, pungent and wholly distinct, but achingly familiar and comforting. She breathes deep, shutting her eyes.

“You wanna write to them?” He asks. Nafisa is quiet, working to keep the cloak from dragging along the ground. She dislikes trading her speed for some other necessity.

“No.” She says at last. “I wouldn’t know what to say if I did. Didn’t exactly part on the best terms with either of them.” She feels Norne shift at her side. Nights spent sharing one another’s bed has made her intimately familiar with his body language. Always he is holding tension within himself, a living spring condensed to its absolute limit. She can feel the untapped potential energy within him, knows that she can test the limits of his instincts with a blade and find him alert and ready, uncoiled like the crack of a whip. Her family will never accept him, she knows, be it as a friend or a lover. While her heritage earns her the mistrust and fascination wherever she dares to tread, she knows for Norne--in this place especially--there will always be fear and hatred. She has no desire to stir her father’s ire, even if he is several hundred miles away.

 _It’s just casual dalliance_. She says to herself, and knows herself for a liar.

“They know anything about this Amatatsu stuff?” Norne asks at last and Nafisa shrugs.

“It’s possible they know some sort of story relating to it,” she replies, wrinkling her nose as her breath mists before her. “My father would likely know something. He keeps secrets better than the dead. My mother may know bits and pieces but her method of intel gathering is...not entirely accurate.” She wiggles her fingers inside the heavy cloak. The chill that nipped at her bones is all but gone, now, and she is content to walk comfortably.

“Still, you should probably tell them.” Norne says and Nafisa looks up at him, halting their walk.

“Would you write to your family, then?” She counters. “Would you tell your mother you’re here if I told my parents?”

“My mother would kill me.” Norne protests. “You know this. Your parents are…” He scratches his head with one clawed finger. “You’ve never really talked about your family before this.”

“As you’ve never spoken of yours.” Nafisa says dryly. “Given our usual methods of communicating, it didn’t seem prudent to mention my filial attachments.”

Norne’s grin never wanes, and the silence that follows becomes increasingly irritating as Nafisa realizes where his thoughts have turned. “Can you act like an adult for one second of your life?”

“No.” Norne says flatly. “I can act like an adult for much, much longer than that, you know this.” He holds up one hand as Nafisa throws a punch at him. Gently, he blocks her strike, taking her wrist in hand. He is reminded--as they both are--of their respective strengths, but his grip, the equivalent of steel shackles, loosens. Norne strokes the tender plane of flesh on her wrist, applying pressure to the nerve that loosens her grip, but only enough for Nafisa to feel the weakness in her arm that follows. In response, she bares her fangs, and feels the bitterness on her tongue as her venom becomes active. Norne chuckles, and then pulls her close. Nafisa does not resist him, but she soothes her bite, and ignores the flood of relief that comes from being so near the heat of his body.

Later, Norne sits by the fire. Nafisa’s watch is soon, and he smirks to see that she’s already prepared for it. Her blades--she has acquired so many over their travels--are well within reach, and she wears the Shozoku of the Night Wind like a second skin. Watching her sleep, he realizes that he has received no enmity from her. Even before, her mouth felt different on his, her forked tongue tasting sweeter. Her poison is to him as nectar to the bee, now, and he sleeps better than he has in weeks.

“Wait…” He murmurs, glancing back at her. This time, she has used no poison on him. He smirks, feeling bold, and retrieves his Harrow deck from his pack. With consummate skill, he shuffles the cards again, spreads them across before him. He knows their weathered surface as he knows his own skin, and as he begins to lay out the past, he fixes her name in his mind. It blurs beneath the fingerprints of half a dozen memories.

He sees her as he did the first time: striking, a little too serious, and brimming with all the deadly potential of a calculating killer. Their first battle, where she’d scored a clean line across his chest, and between the two of them torn the tavern apart, and he’d held her wriggling and thrashing in his grasp as he pleaded with her to find sense. He sees her as he did during their first night together, where she’d scored his back with her nails, and left the mark of her teeth in his shoulder. He sees her in battle, moving with a hunter’s deadly precision, cleaving foes with her glaive, miring her hands in the blood of their ceaseless foes. He sees her too, near death, laying broken and bloodied in the heart of the Kimandatsu’s lair, shortly before his own demise. He remembers only panic, and then clarity, and then awakening amidst the snow drifts of the Crown of the World, healed and whole.

Norne remembers her in all the moments in which she is woman and serpent, and remembers how quickly she relaxed after he’d given her his cloak. With a smile that is more fond than he’ll ever admit, he even remembers her scent, the subtle musk of black orchid she keeps in her pack. He’s watched her dab the precious oil along her nape, behind her ears...once, at the small of her back where his fingertips had lingered on the scar there.

He reaches for her past, hovering over the card briefly, and flips the card to peer at its face.


	2. Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norne and Nafisa call a truce in the only way they know how.

“How far down do the scales go?” Norne asks. His eyes chase a path down her back, ending where the silk of her scandalous gown begins. He can make out the fine lines of her scales, arrayed in a pattern of a deadly viper. He leans in, unable to help himself, presses his lips between her shoulder blades. Nafisa pretends the warm ghost of his breath on her skin does not thrill her. She bows her head, making a low sound so soft that she hopes he can’t hear her.

“You already know the answer to this question.” She tells him. “Or is it an invitation you want?”

His hands slide along her sides, beneath the silk, over the delicate expanse of her ribcage, and he cups her breasts, pulling her back against him. Suddenly, he is all tenderness and wanton affection, nuzzling her throat. The infernal smoke he emanates curls around her neck like a necklace, whispering along her skin in a caress, carrying the faint scent of _hell_ in its wake. She cannot purge him from her blood anymore than he can stay away from her. She will never tell him this, and will guard her own heart with a keen jealousy better reserved for the serpent that swims the pipes of her veins. Let the woman be foolish, she thinks, let her love this demon and forget herself. The serpent will stay its bite for now.

“I only come when I’m invited.” He murmurs after a long pause, his voice rumbling across her skin like thunder across the land. Nafisa turns her head with a heady sigh and presses her lips to his forehead. Norne feels her smile cut across his skin, basking in the low whispering laugh she rewards him, even as his tail curls around her leg.

“Later.” She promises, and Norne tastes no venom in her voice when she says it. Even her usual acerbity is subdued, replaced by something vulnerable, something he can sink his teeth into.

He considers it a victory.


	3. From Above

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes courage is being the only one who knows you're afraid.

Nafisa watches Taj from the safety and comfort of the shadows. Magic is strange to her, a thing she is aware of but has never understood. She remembers peering into the pages of a spellbook and being utterly confounded by the angry symbols scribbled within. She wagers Taj’s is no different. Her eyes, poison-bright, follow the crackling ball of lighting in his hand as he manipulates it into shapes with practiced and controlled motions.

With liquid grace, Nafisa rises from her lean against the tree, and steps into the light. In the same instant, Taj--startled--releases the lightning in her direction and Nafisa spills into a dive, tucking into a tight roll as the lightning wounds the tree behind her.

“Maker’s sodding breath!” She swears, already on her feet, fangs bared on instinct alone. Taj is still startled, but he shrinks in shame at having nearly struck the slight woman. Nafisa picks a careful path toward him, smiling.

“Sorry,” Taj says sheepishly, “I...you’re always so quiet! You shouldn’t sneak up on people who can shoot lightning.”

Nafisa snorts. “I’ll keep that in mind in our next fight.” She retorts dryly. “Perhaps we can put Rune as the scout?” She raises a brow at him, taking undue pleasure in his discomfort.

“Hey Rune is a perfectly capable fighter,” Taj protests, “but you--nevermind. Did you need something?” Nafisa is a portrait of stillness. She has become accustomed to her role as the hunter, drawing upon the skill set her parents bequeathed her. Taj feels like a bundle of frantic energy seeking an outlet, and perhaps it is the viperous poison of her gaze, but Nafisa waits for him to calm his nerves before speaking.

“I was merely observing your practice.” She tilts her head, her gaze sliding to his hands. “How do you practice magic?”

Taj is, at first, confused by her question, but as it dawns on him that she is genuinely curious, as evident by her hushed and expectant smile, he becomes excited. It is not often he has a chance to talk about his arcane art, and he will own that Nafisa is far more pleasant company than the awakened primate Norne has foisted upon him. Still, it is a strange request all the same.

“Well,” he begins, “uh...well. First you have to…” It occurs to him in this moment that he has never truly explained magic to someone who does not use it. How does one explain the complexity of spellwork? Where does one begin?

“How much do you know about magic?” He asks. “Truly?”

Nafisa shrugs. “I know it exists and that it is dangerous. I have seen others like you in my lifetime, but have always been curious...have you always had the gift?” She reaches out quickly, too quick for Taj to register the movement, and takes his hands, examining them. She releases them almost as quickly, finding nothing.

“This might be new to you, then.” Taj laughs. “I guess I’ve always had it. I went to the academy for it but...my people have always had magic in our blood.”

“Shoanti.” Nafisa says, her characteristic _hiss_ slithering beneath the word. Taj’s brows raise. Generally, Varisians spoke of the Shoanti in superstitious tones. It is refreshing to hear his people’s name called with the respect it deserves.

“Shoanti.” Taj echoes, smiling. “I cannot speak for others, but when I cast, it is not with the prescribed words and gestures that is considered standard. I call upon those who came before--my ancestors. Where I am from, we must gain permission from those who hold more wisdom. Every spell I cast is sanctioned by this.” He inclines his head toward the burnt tree. “The academy merely taught me to understand the mechanics of magic.”

Nafisa takes a deep breath. “I see.” She hesitates, lifting her hands. “Would I...do you think…?”

Taj glances at her, confused, then down at her hands. “Oh! You want to...well...I don’t know? Perhaps you could peruse the spellbooks? If you learn to understand how it works, maybe the next step is casting? Norne thieved quite a few books, memory serve.”

Nafisa purses her lips. “And we’ll return them on the way back.” She says firmly. “I suppose my curiosity can wait. I’ve no wish to delay you in your practice.” She turns to leave. Taj watches her a moment, until she passes beneath the shadow of another tree, vanishing. He takes a deep breath, shutting his eyes; as he exhales, his eyes open as lightning crackles in his palms, the breath of his ancestors pushing the flow of his magic stronger until he calls down a bolt from the sky, banishing the shadows in a blink, sending birds scattering from the trees. From her perch, Nafisa watches and realizes that the frantic energy she once scoffed at is not frantic at all.

It is the wrath of heaven.


	4. Worth It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flint asks some uncomfortable questions.

The Forest of Spirits is beautiful, Nafisa cannot deny this, but the magic of this place--the _other_ that seems to soak the very air--makes her tired. Norne has mentioned that he was born here, and it is difficult to reconcile the demon of Sandpoint with this place, where his roots are less firm. She is quiet during the journey, careful about her footing, but less as the days seem to blend into unending night.

While she seems to flag, however, Flint thrives.

Nafisa cannot deny that her initial assessment of the girl was an unfair one, but she has since proven herself invaluable to the cohesion of their party, and Nafisa remembers from the outset that it was Flint who introduced her to the effects of lightning imbued in the blade.

She smiles to remember it, how the shaft of the glaive had grown warm with potential magic waiting for release. She’d struck with brutal precision, and lightning leapt from the gleaming blade to chase paths through her enemy’s flesh. She breathes deep to banish the memory, wincing a little from the dull ache in her ribs. Kimandatsu’s blow had shattered several of her ribs, and Koya’s spells had done much of the mending.

_“The rest,”_ Koya had said as Nafisa lay in catatonic stillness, _“is up to time.”_ The old woman had placed a gentle hand on Nafisa’s head, then, but she had not moved, hurting from within to without as her pain and her grief began to crush her spirit. Flint had been there too, worried and just as hurt.

“Fisa!” Flint’s voice is unusual in the Forest of Spirits, pulling her back to the present and out of her thoughts. Before, Nafisa has always thought it shrill, almost grating, but mostly tolerable. Here, in this place where time and existence feel very much like a dream, Flint sounds like the fey-creature she is. There is a glow about her, like a soft candle gently dancing in the subtle breeze. It shifts with each of her nigh birdlike movements and Nafisa is hard-pressed to respond, waiting until the predator in her can settle, even as her hand relaxes from the hilt of one of her wakizashi.

“Flint.” Nafisa says, her voice soft and amused. “Out searching for animals to charm?”

Flint’s smile is wide. The thought of the girl adding anymore animals to her strange--and seemingly sentient--menagerie, is both amusing to Nafisa and horrifying. Stranger things have happened, she knows, not the least of which being their lives being owed to Flint’s duck.

“Where’s Howard?” She asks, peering beyond Flint’s shoulder. The duck is usually in tow or in Flint’s arms and Nafisa has grown accustomed to the soft, mocking quacks of their unlikely companion. Flint shrugs, turning out her hands.

“I guess he wanted some alone time.” She says absently. Her gaze shifts, unfocused, her expression blurred between her smile and something heavier. Nafisa narrows her eyes briefly, but says nothing. Flint meets her gaze.

“Can I ask you something?” Her expression is hopeful, so hopeful even Nafisa cannot resist the girl’s charm. Maker! She purses her lips, raising a brow.

“If it has anything to do with finding you a dog, the answer is no.” She says with a laugh. “And I wager any dog you find here you’d not want to keep anyhow.” At Flint’s unchanged expression Nafisa sighs. “Fine. What is it?”

Flint’s gaze is unfocused again, and she suddenly focuses on her hands, fiddling with the embroidery along the edges of her sleeve. The movements are too much for Nafisa, who is a creature to which stillness is a necessity to survival, and she resists the urge to grab Flint by the shoulders and calm her.

“Do you love Norne?” Flint asks suddenly. The question hits Nafisa almost as hard as Kimandatsu did, and she blinks rapidly, trying to drown her heart in the acid pit of her stomach. Of all the things Flint can ask, she chooses the question with the sharpest edges. Yet, Nafisa is calm when she answers: “Not in the way you think.”

Flint nods. “But, if something happened to him you’d do something to help, right?”

Nafisa’s brow furrows in confusion. “...yes? I would protect him, as a comrade-at-arms, and I would avenge him, as he is my friend. I suppose that counts as love. Why do you ask?” She hopes Flint pries no further. Whatever answer she seeks Nafisa has buried too deep to be excavated without considerable aid, usually in the form of torture or arcane compulsion. Luckily, Flint seems distracted, reaching to scratch at the hapless lichen on the tree next to them.

“So if Norne died--”

Nafisa freezes on instinct, her pulse racing as the words pull her backward, dragging her across mountains to that rugged, snow-packed expanse of hell that dared call itself the Crown of the World.

_There is so much blood in the snow. Maker, why is there so much blood?_

_“Nafisa, wait! Don’t look.” Taj’s voice is miles from her as she walks forward, quick--too quick for Taj to stop her. The sheet billows gently in the algid breeze. A bloodstain, spreading like a plague, several drops of it already dark and russet from exposure. Norne’s arm hangs from the beneath the sheet, limp and lifeless. Nafisa is aware that a strangled, keening sound is splitting the silence, cracking it apart. What manner of beastial pain is this? She wonders distantly. It’s her. She’s never heard herself cry before._

“--would you bring him back if you could?”

Nafisa blinks away the memory and stares at Flint.

“If I could, yes.” She says softly. Flint is fraught with nervous energy, Nafisa can feel it. There is something inside of her, something that is driving her, and she wonders: “Why? Is this about his...resurrection?” She does not know why her voice drops to a whisper at the word, and Flint’s expression is caught between a torrent of emotions too quick and esoteric for Nafisa to parse without considerable difficulty.

“I just wanted to know if you would.” Flint says. “Would you do it if it meant bad things happening?”

_Do you love Norne?_

_Not in the way you think._

Nafisa tilts her head. Flint’s gaze holds more than childish innocence; there is power there. For a moment, it is not the girl she sees looking back at her, but all the weighty divinity of her bloodline. She takes a deep breath, and turns her gaze to the thick forest canopy. Tiny lights blink above them, soft and lazily floating. They are not insects, they’ve been told, but spirits of the lost.

“If it meant endangering others that he could live,” Nafisa says, giving up on finding the stars through the thick ceiling of leaves and magic that hides the sky from her, “I would do it.” She surprises herself, but is pleased. Her father would throttle her for putting personal affairs above the mission, but she reminds herself that she left home to make her own way. Let her fool brother ascribe to dragonian, unfeeling tenets. She fights for those she loves...even the ones she loves in ways one might not think.

Flint smiles, nervous at first, but then with confidence as Nafisa’s answer settles around her like a shroud. The lichen she scratches at replicates, stubbornly clinging to the bark of the tree despite her best efforts. She gives up on it and straightens up her posture.

“I’m glad.” She says and Nafisa smiles back. As Flint wanders away, presumably to chase another animal to add to her growing collection, Nafisa notices her steps are lighter. Whatever was on her shoulders before, seems to have been eased away for now, and she smiles fondly as Flint shrieks happily after a rabbit that is no rabbit at all. With a secrecy a snake would envy, Nafisa slips into the shadows behind Flint to keep an eye out. She loves the girl, after all.

And love is a many-throated beast.


	5. Home

Hiding in plain sight is an oft-overlooked trick, one Nafisa readily employs as she hauls herself onto the stony strip of land with a gasp. She takes a moment to thank Pharasma for her mercy, an instinct her father impressed upon her and her brother in the form of a bundle of birch rods. As she raises up unsteadily, swaying like an uncertain serpent, she remembers: no one can see her.

Nafisa stands, looking up the length of the drawbridge, her eyes hard, her mouth set in grim determination. She weighs the risks in her mind, even as she hears her companions struggle against the enormous water elementals across the stormy waters that nearly claimed her life.

No one can see her.

With careful precision, she crouches, and then in a single burst leaps upward, reaching for the rude and pitted wood of the raised bridge. She exhales as her fingers find purchase on one of the large iron nails, her abdomen burning with the effort to control her body and find footholds. For a moment she breathes, but it is a moment only, and she quickly scrambles up the bridge, keeping her eye trained always to the lip of the balcony. The smoke from Flint’s display has mostly cleared, and her eyes barely register the sting as her secondary lids close, her vision shifting seamlessly in the dark. She pauses at the lip of the drawbridge, listening to the undercurrent of sound beneath the mighty voice of the waterfall.

Hissing, the slight scrabbling of claws...Nafisa frowns and slips her forked tongue from her mouth. Heat, she can feel them. Four of them--four who should have perished in the fireball’s explosion.

The hobgoblin archers are alive.

Nafisa shares a smile with the darkness, the closest thing to a prayer she will ever give Pharasma and her neutral silence. For a moment, she wonders if this risk will be worth it, and remembers her brother’s words to her before he left their household for good.

_Nothing satisfying ever comes without some degree of risk._

Nafisa’s smile becomes a grin before she reaches up, grasping the wayward strap of one archer’s belt. It is unfortunate that she’s invisible, she thinks, even as she registers the shock on his face as his resistance is thwarted. His confusion chases the screech of terror out of his throat and into the open air. In the darkness, Nafisa wishes for a moment to be visible so the bastard can know she is responsible. She watches him flail and tumble past her, shivers at the wet sound of his skull striking stone before the soft splash of his body slipping into the water confirms her kill.

Having tasted death, she aims to deal with the others in the same way. One by one they are picked off, snatched by an unseen hand, shoved by an unseen force. These archers, who have guarded this pagoda’s boundary for so long, meet their end in the coils of a serpent. She watches the last of them tumble to the hungry, churning waters, turning just in time to see Norne seemingly appear before her.

“All clear!” Norne cries mere moments before Nafisa appears as well. It startles him, but only slightly. He knows her handiwork well enough by now. Still, Nafisa ignores the sound of his skull cracking in her recent memory, and they press on ahead.

Later, in the relative safety of the rope trick spell, Nafisa finds rest for the first time in what feels like days. There is a comfort she finds in these walls that she is not sure was there before, but cannot bring herself to care. She watches with cool fascination as the fungus devours the corpses of the guards they’ve killed, wondering what parts of this place have fallen to rot and ruin, and what parts of the rot and ruin are wholly intentional.

She sighs as something within her washes away her curiosity, and ultimately she decides it does not matter.

After all, she is home.


	6. Welt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On how Nafisa entered the campaign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place some years before the Jade Regent campaign.

She was but three days within Sandpoint’s dusty jowls, road-weary and bruised when she learned of the beast that her brother had been tracking. Her sources and resources were exhausted, and she was on her last few coins: five gold pieces and a few silvers. All the money she’d spent, all of the lives she’d taken in Varisia, the pockets she’d picked...all of it had led her here, to this forgotten scab of backwater country clinging to the furthest edge of anywhere decent.

But her brother was here, and that was what mattered. That was enough to make her current state of weariness and flirtations with poverty worth it.

Liang was here, and once she found him they could go home and face their parents together. All would be forgiven—or she would pay the price of her scales in penance if need be—and she would be worthy in their father’s eyes. He would make of her a killer deserving of his prestigious bloodline. He would _see_ her.

To think she had been so naive.

Nafisa drew her mask further up her face, leery as she assessed the small settlement and its denizens. They were mostly human, and she noted that with a grim dissatisfaction but also with relief. Vishkanya rarely ventured from their warm homeland Cassamar, and those who did inevitably found an easier life in the far side of the world in Tian Xia, where her family had planted its roots long ago. It would be a simple enough matter to ask about. Liang bore the telltale morph of their mother, though Nafisa supposed the significance of his unblemished black scales would be lost on such provincial outsiders. Liang’s venom was one of the most complex of their race; excruciating and agonizing, it killed in less than five minutes, less than that if he delivered it near the heart. Nafisa resisted the instinctive curl of her lip. She bore their father’s morph, the soft browns of the rattler, with the lovely diamond array running the length of her spine. Her venom killed slower, but the march to death for her victims was a no less brutal one.

Aside, she had always favored the old-fashioned way: a blade in the dark.

This was what occupied her thoughts as she found the town’s only tavern and inn, and made her way inside. She had learned in her years in Varisia that inebriation yielded far more threads of truth than any threat or torture could spin out. Of course, a friend of hers from Cheliax had dissuaded her from what he called small-minded thinking.

Nafisa found herself seated at the bar, wondering if her thirst was enough to spend her last coins. She needed shelter more than a drink, and needed to find work if she hoped to eat anything in the next few days. She doubted anyone in this sleepy town needed an assassin. There were not enough farm animals that she’d seen that would warrant any feuds for which her talents would then be considered useful. No, these were simple folk, with simple problems, none of which were worth her time.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice lifted Nafisa’s head only slightly, keeping her eyes low to study the bartender in a more subtle manner. “You’re new. Can I get you anything, traveler?”

Nafisa could make out the laces of a corset, and delicate hands clutching a well-worn rag. The nails were a bit rough—a hardworking woman’s hands. She looked up, then, meeting the woman’s gaze and was startled to find her warmly attractive. The bartender too seemed momentarily stunned, and Nafisa understood why.

Vishkanya were known for their beauty and grace, but most of it was word of mouth, passed on by travelers who’d heard from a friend who overheard a conversation amidst sailors deep in their cups, raving about exotic lands and foreign shores...and Vishkanyan courtesans. There was some merit to those rumors, as Nafisa had often been told her appearance was striking. The other part of those rumors was stamped upon her very flesh, which was not flesh as it appeared, but scales so fine as to appear flesh-like from a distance. Her eyes, which were somewhat larger than a human’s, were serpentine—a vibrant, but venomous green with thinned pupils. Her secondary lids slid away now that she was indoors. The bartender swallowed visibly.

“Just some water for now.” Nafisa said, displeased with how hoarse and reedy her voice sounded. The journey had seen her mostly locked in silence as she braved the road alone, but her throat was dry and aching from thirst, and she was ashamed to think of what remained in her water skin.

“Sure thing.” The bartender’s voice was cheerful, all shock and fascination seemingly faded in the wake of the casual pleasantries. “Name’s Ameiko. If you need anything, give me a holler…?” She tilted her head in a way that teased the corner of Nafisa’s mouth into a reluctant smile.

“Nafisa.” She said simply. Ameiko smiled, her sun-browned cheeks flushing with color as she made a gesture with her hand.

“Alright, Nafisa. I’ll get you some water. Sure you don’t want anything stronger? You look like you’ve had a long trip...no offense, mind you.”

Nafisa gave a droll shrug. “None taken, Ameiko. It has been a long journey, but I believe I’ve come to the end of it.”

Ameiko was silent a moment, and Nafisa felt the tension beginning to wind around in her body as the other woman tilted her head again, brows furrowed in consternation.

“Is it?” She asked. Nafisa took a slow, withering breath. She knew that Ameiko was no more than a human girl, chatting up a lonely stranger at the bar, and yet the question felt too pointed and direct for her to not give the woman a second glance.

“What brings you to Sandpoint, if you don’t mind me asking?” Ameiko asked. “I mean, you say your journey might be over and...I can’t imagine anyone willingly coming here and just...settling. We’re not exactly the kind of town you plant roots in.”

Nafisa smiled thinly. Perhaps Ameiko was just a backwater town girl after all.

“No, but I am looking for my brother.” She said dismissively. “Have any other travelers been this way recently? That look like me, I mean.” She was surprised at how a simple sip of water had made it so much easier to slip into the role of unassuming but curious traveler again. How many of her Marks had found themselves drawn into that slide of her coils, unable to feel the inevitability of their end until they tried to pull away? Ameiko was no Mark but she served a purpose all the same: she had information.

“Like you?” Ameiko asked, brows raised. “I don’t think there’s anyone who could look like you, if you don’t mind my saying. But...there was another of...your kind here some months back. But he only wanted to know about the Sandpoint Devil, and then continued on his way.”

Nafisa resisted the urge to leap from her seat. Her body was tight with potential energy, like a spring condensed to the limit, seeking release. Almost as soon as Ameiko gave her the news, innumerable questions clawed for purchase before she finally exhaled and said, “I see. Did he say where he was headed?”

Ameiko hesitated before leaning in to speak, _sotto voce_ : “Look, lots of adventurers occasionally blow through here looking for the Sandpoint Devil. It’s a story a lot of the old farmers and homesteaders use to scare their kids into behaving. As far as most people know, it _is_ just a story. But sometimes, adventurers go looking, and don’t come back.”

Nafisa narrowed her eyes. “Just what are you implying?” She asked, venom hissing along the knife-edge of her words. Ameiko crossed her arms, shooting Nafisa an arch look.

“We warned your brother not to get cocky and go nosing about. And…” Ameiko suddenly seemed remorseful. Nafisa, for her part, felt only the growing tension turning to encroaching dread. “Look, Nafisa, had we known he had any family…”

The words were distant, as if from a dream. Nafisa felt her stomach hollow out, her heart spinning in her chest, her lungs suddenly starved for air, yet there didn’t seem to be enough air in the room for her to breathe. Her hand gripped the edge of the bar so hard she could feel her bones begin to strain. Ameiko reached to place her hand over. Nafisa’s, her expression soft with sympathy. Even now, with a sense of burgeoning grief, she felt that damned Vishkanyan hysteria at war with the hard disciplines instilled in her by her father. She wanted to scream, but the cold pragmatist within her stymied whatever grief she had. One day, she would learn to weep, but today, she was as still as living statuary.

Liang was dead.


	7. Tidings

Uncle Mozai, while a recent addition to the team, has proven himself invaluable. Nafisa watches his interactions with Norne, curious and patient as a predator. She seeks to read the uncharted text between them, the irrational part of her leaping to wild conclusions, exciting her pulse to a frenetic cadence in her ears. The killer in her douses the flame of her anxiety, battling the Vishkanya to a steamy, pained gridlock as she realizes that she does not know what to make of the cleric.

She approaches him later, finding him in deep meditation, perched atop his giant tortoise like some mockery of the monkey god-king. Her time spent in the back alleys of Riddleport, and hunting men far deadlier than she has made her cat-quiet in her approach. She wonders--as she always does--how easy it will be to leap onto the tortoise’s back and--

“Something troubling you, Nafisa?” Uncle Mozai’s deep and wise voice startles her out of her statuary stillness, a rare feat. It has become increasingly harder for Nafisa to be surprised, though yews she will one day match Rune’s preternatural awareness. She stares up at Uncle Mozai, keeping her expression neutral.

“Why must I be troubled to come see you, Uncle?” She asks, amused. The cleric does not look at her when he says, “Your blood runs hot with rage. Why?”

It takes her aback, only for a moment, and she blinks rapidly. The word does not fit--not really. Rage is too strong, too wild, and too unpredictable. It is a mystery that obfuscates the true source of her anger. Nafisa is blind to nothing within herself, least of all the fury that simmers in her blood. She knows, in some part of herself, that the House of Withered Blossoms may yet claim her life, and in that, her brother’s bones will never be rested. She has vowed to return to Sandpoint and finally slay the Sandpoint Devil, a vow she made foolishly in her youth years ago and yet…

“A promise I made some time ago may not be fulfilled.” She replies, her voice calm. Mozai opens his eyes and turns to her. Unlike Taj, who sees Mozai’s primate features behaving so humanly as an abomination and somewhat to be feared, Nafisa is ambivalent. She has seen her own reflection, and smiles a little at the memory it elicits.

“Hmm,” Mozai muses, his slender fingers scratching the fur-beard on his face. “Why do you think this promise may be broken? Has somewhat happened to change it?”

Nafisa crosses her arms. “We must see this mission here through to the end, Uncle. The others may see this as some frivolous diversion on the road to Minkai, but I am not foolish enough to believe all of us will make it out of here alive.” She does not tell Mozai that there is something in her that longs to _remain_ here, and she feels that perhaps it is wrong but she cannot bring herself to care.

Mozai’s expression is grave. “You are afraid this place will claim your life, leaving you unable to fulfill a promise you made.” He states and Nafisa hesitates. Mozai frowns. “Not yourself. Someone else. Norne?”

“All of them!” Nafisa says quickly. “But Norne. Yes. I’ve--we’ve lost him once, and almost again not three days past. I…” She is frustrated, and for once her forked tongue cannot split the truth in two. She must tell the whole of it, and Mozai waits patiently as Nafisa tells him. Her fear spills out of her like a sickness, and indeed she tells him that too, that whatever has been making her sick has had little mercy on her since entering this wretched dungeon. Mozai listens, his face unchanging, his gaze weighted as the viperous woman confesses what she has been hiding for many weeks. In the end, when the torrent of her voice is spent, she regrets having said anything at all.

“You bear a heavy burden on your small shoulders, Nafisa,” Mozai says gravely, “and for that I am sorry. You have persisted in this quest for longer than most would credit you for, but I must ask: what will you tell the others?”

Nafisa’s eyes are wide with alarm. “Nothing! What I tell you now, I tell you in confidence.”

“But of course.” Mozai says, nodding firmly in assent. “I would never betray your confidence. Still, you cannot hide this for long. Eventually, the truth will out.”

“It will not matter if we all die down here.” Nafisa says shortly. “If we live, I will tell them and it will be glad news to some. But only if we live; no more than that will I promise, Uncle.”

Mozai nods again. “Very well. It is your choice, Nafisa. But do not let your secrecy trick you into robbing him of his.”

Nafisa frowns. “He does not need anymore distractions on the field. Keeping him alive is your business.” She pauses. “I am sorry…for my outburst earlier. It was unworthy of me.”

Mozai says nothing, but his expression softens and Nafisa feels a sense of relief as she turns on her heel to walk away. She rounds a corner toward the main stairwell and finds Rune standing there, arms crossed. Nafisa meets Rune’s gaze, and knows that there are no questions she can ask that will make this moment vanish forever. Rune’s expression is worried, her elegant brow creased, her eyes wide. The inquisitor looks Nafisa up and down, a mixture of expression and a bit of delight.

“Just how far along _are_ you?”


	8. Horn & Scale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Implied sex.

_“For the last time, I’m not the Sandpoint Devil!” He cries, jerking his head aside as a dagger’s blade bites into the wall mere inches from his temple. He barely has time to get his guard up when the vicious woman is upon him, a veritable viper tagging his heels. She strikes quickly, and he swears she’s made of knives._

_“Oh for fuck’s sak—” He growls and reaches for her. She wriggles like a fish fighting the hook, even as his arms catch her about the waist, securing her to him firmly. “Hold still!” He snaps through gritted teeth. She shoots him a look over her shoulder briefly, and he meets that serpentine gaze openly, daring her. She curls her lip in a sneer, revealing engorged gums, the clear liquid of her venom beading at the tips of her fangs like blood. Her forked tongue slithers from her mouth, and she is more serpent than woman in this moment._

_Norne thinks to himself that it should not arouse him, but it does, Desna forgive him._

_Without warning she rears back, her head smashing into his face. He grunts and smiles, even as his nose smarts with agony, his blood oozing from his nostrils. It hurts every time, but she’s less suited to such a brash move than he, as evident from her reeling head, and the dizziness glazing her eyes._

_His grip loosens, and she turns on him, a blade in either hand._

_“Did I hurt you?” She asks nastily. Norne touches his fingertips to his bloodied nose and smiles at her._

* * *

It ends the same way.

He does not always ask with words, and Nafisa does not always answer with her mouth, but the end result is the same. She watches, fascinated, as a satisfied cloud of smoke spills from his mouth in the aftermath, his eyes heavy-lidded. Her venom, usually shifted for killing, has become a potent sleeping agent, and it swims his veins even now, coaxing him to a languor even sex cannot accomplish.

She shifts, lissome and fluid, lifting her weight from him to curl at his side. She does not choose to think on how his arm comes around her instinctively, bringing her close enough that the preternatural heat of him seeps into her, a strange answer to her own love bite. The serpent in her revels in it, and she makes a small sound of contentment before she can stop herself.

“Did I hurt you?” She asks instead, terse but her voice is still breathless, her eyes soft and blurred with pleasure. He is silent; loose-limbed and a bit slack-jawed, though he makes an attempt to smile, as if some unseen hook tugs the corner of his mouth. Nafisa’s touch, rife with exquisite cruelty only moments before, is gentle. She brushes the silken strands of his hair from his face, tracing an unhurried thumb along his brow. He watches her, still lazy, but there’s a gathering awareness she feels, the fighter in him rousing to meet the slayer in her.

He captures her wrist in an iron grip, his thumb on her pulse.

“Yeah…” He manages at last, meeting her gaze directly, “…but I **liked** it.”


End file.
